The Fog

The fog is closing in.

I can sense it.
Feel it closing around me, stealing all joy.

Nothing is wrong.
But things don't seem right, either.

I have everything I could want or need.
I feel guilty for not being content.

Nothing satisfies.
Nothing seems worthwhile.

The mess bothers me but the energy required to fix it is too much.
There is so much to do.

Physical fog has a sense of mystery and adventure.  There is great beauty in it and the way it transforms the landscape.

This is not beautiful.
There is no adventure and the only mystery is why.

Why does this happen to me?
Why can't I be satisfied with my wonderful life?
Why does it come once or twice a year and engulf me, paralyse me?

I can't be a good mother or wife like this.
I can't provide what they need from me.

The fog seeps through my skin, dulling the nerves.  It tries to claw its way further in, to take everything from me.  I fight but I'm losing grip on my weapons.

How can I turn the tide?
Where is the sun to burn the fog away?

I can't see the light that I know is there.
I struggle on, knowing that in the past it has eventually moved on and I have emerged from the other side.
Is the other side just around the corner, or have I only begun the journey?

Siblings

You know, it's never occurred to me that anyone would think my siblings are anything other than awesome.

I am the oldest of 4 - two sisters and a brother.

My next sister has three kids (which I think deserves a medal in and of itself).  She is courageous and loving and adventurous and doesn't seem to think life has any boundaries.  She's generous and caring and ferocious in the best possible way.  She's in to roller derby and she's creative and boundary-less!

My youngest sister is fun and resilient and beautiful.  She's "made it" in most peoples' view but she's down-to-earth and tender and I think she's absolutely amazing.  She's also courageous, and places a huge value on people.

My brother, the youngest of us, is wonderfully soft and tender in a completely manly way.  He communicates perfectly with people of every demographic and honestly has a heart of gold.  I wish he knew how amazing and special he is!  He has an incredible, infectious laugh (which occasionally leads to the infamous walrus laugh, which breeds further laughter) and a strong sense of morality.

Tonight I'm just reflecting on how incredibly lucky I am to have such wonderful siblings.  I love you all and I miss you terribly!  You are my inspiration and I often wish I was more like each of you.

That can't be right!!!

So, I've had a couple of ciders with the Big Fella this evening and I'm possibly a little fuzzy.  Please forgive anything stupid that comes out of this post!

My blog is hosted (?) through Blogspot and they give me stats about it.  Things like how many people read each post, which websites the clicks come from, and which country you're in when you read it.

Apparently this week I've had readers from Russia, Australia, France, the United States, Poland, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, China and Columbia.  And apparently 51 people have read my Irrational post.

And while I'm absolutely chuffed about the idea of people from so many places reading the stuff that comes out of my head, I just can't see how it's true!

So I have a request, if you're willing to participate.

Would you be willing to put in a comment at the bottom of this post?  Would you put your name and country (and, especially if you're in Australia, your town)?

I'd really like to know who you are!

Thanks :)

Late night reflections

I wrote recently about one of the reasons I haven't been blogging lots lately.  Another main reason is that my work hours have changed, which means I have much less time after the Little Big Fella goes to bed before I hit the hay, too.

And it turns out that my creative (especially reflective) writing is done 99.9% of the time in the hours between 10 and midnight.

Poop for blogland!

But tonight is Friday after a long, hard week, my Fellas are snoring and I'm ready to put a few thoughts into the netherworld of the internet.

My Nanna turned 80 today!  I wish so much that I could be there to say, "Happy Birthday" and give her a birthday hug!!!

But I've been reflecting on some of my favourite memories of her, and the things I love about her, and how lucky I have been to have lived so close to her and Poppy as an adult.  Some days that would make me teary because I don't have it now.  But today it just makes me grateful to have been influenced by such a loving, courageous, safe, comfortable, practical, strong woman.

I love you, Nanna!

My youngest sister rang me tonight and we had a good chat and a laugh.  While we were talking, my brother rang her and we ended up having a group call!  It was almost as good as catching up for a cuppa together.

I had to tell them my painful story.

Last year the Little Big Fella's school took them roller skating for an end-of-year activity.  He loved it and wanted to do it every day over the holidays.  So last Friday night I'd found out that it was open to the public and I took the Little Big Fella along (despite being absolutely shattered and just wanting to curl up on the couch with a book).

He was SO excited!



To start with, he probably spent about 90% of the time picking himself up off the ground, but by the end of the session he was skating around the middle of the rink and mostly keeping his balance!  I was really impressed!

But near the start, we were skating around the edges very slowly and my skate got stuck on a bit of dirt or something on the ground.

You know those cartoons where people are about to slip over and their feet go backwards and forwards several times really fast before both feet flip up in front of them and they fall on their butt?  Yeah, I did a pretty good impression of that!  I laughed about it, because it must have looked pretty spectacular!  But I am still feeling it!

I'm pretty sure I'm somewhat allergic to the coal dust in the air here.  It makes me sneeze... a lot!  Even when I take antihistamines.

Did you know that when you sneeze, it causes your butt to clench slightly?  Nope, neither did I until the first time I sneezed the day after roller skating!!!!!!  Oh my Lord!  The pain!!!!

But it makes a pretty good story, so I happily shared it with my siblings, who had a good laugh.  (I even managed to induce the infamous walrus laugh from my brother!) 

You know those memes on Facebook about the best friends being those who you can chat with after years of not talking, and it's as if you were talking yesterday?  That's what I get with my family.  We're terrible at calling each other.  But we think of each other all the time.  And when we do catch up, it is THE BEST!

The next door neighbour's cat is calling out to its owners (also known as slaves) to let it in, which reminded me of a recent 4am wake up.  Did you know that a cat meowing can sound like your son calling, "Mum" in the saddest voice ever? I woke very suddenly, rushed to his room to discover him fast asleep.

What????

I mean, I know he occasionally sleepwalks to the loo, but calling out to me in his sleep like that?

Then the cat meowed a few more times and I went back to bed, having discovered the trickery.

It continued for the next hour and half, by the way.

I would have willingly shot it and faced the prospect of jail that night.  Except getting out of bed, even to shoot the cat (who I quite like in the daylight) would have taken way more effort than I was willing to expend.

The Big Fella has been away for a couple of days of training for work and came home this evening.  It was only two days, but I missed him and I'm really glad to have him home.

Can you imagine any reason that someone would build a 3-bay shed and not put power to it?  A small garden shed, maybe.  But anything big enough to stand properly in, and definitely anything big enough to fit a car in needs power.

Apparently the previous owners don't agree.

So the Big Fella dug a trench (which filled with LOTS of water - we had over 150mm of rain in 4 days just after he dug most of the trench).  And the electrician has been and connected power from the house to the distributor box in the shed.  Now to hook up lights, fans and power points so that it can truly be a drool-worthy man-cave!

Okay, the rambler has rambled enough and needs to go to bed.  Or finish reading her novel.  Sleep well, my friends!

Irrational

Some days I find myself feeling particularly cross.  I snap at my Fellas (normally internally, but sometimes it escapes), and sometimes stomp or crash about, and huff or sigh.  My countenance lacks sunshine, and my words are short and sharp.

My mum's catch phrase in these times is,

"if you can't control (your life, yourself, the world... take your pick), control the mess",

and I have learned that throwing myself into busy housework activity can sometimes improve my mood because I've improved my environment.

I'm the kind of person who looks inwardly and tries to discover the source of ill humour, in the hope that identifying it will allow me to change something and, thus, improve my disposition.

Sometimes the cause is the apparent mass of tasks that need to be done in the short time available.  If I'm honest with you, this is often self-induced, but I do like to add interesting things to the repetitiveness of life.

Or the fact that others in the house appear to contribute only to the messing stuff up, rather than the cleaning up side of things (which, by the way, is completely untrue - it only feels that way some days).

Sometimes the cause of my disharmony is a hangover of whatever has been happening at work.  Others may have been in a foul mood or had disasters in their life, and I take it on.

But sometimes I'm irrationally cranky.  There is no obvious reason for being a sourpuss, and certainly no reason to take it out on others.

As my Poppy used to say, "I've got my cranky pants on"!

And being cranky when it's irrational, makes me crankier because I know I'm being completely unfair on those around me.

So, to my Fellas, I apologise again. You two are wonderful and I incredibly lucky to have both of you!  I love you...

and so do my cranky pants! 

Another new start

We've started back at school this week, which, among other things, means, getting back into routines to keep everything moving along and getting done.

I like routine, but I like flexible routine the best!  I like a routine that says, "when you get up, wake up properly and do a workout.  Then cool down properly and have a shower.  Eat a nutritious, delicious breakfast then finish getting ready to leave the house."

That style of routine suits me much better than, "get up at X.  Get into the gym by Y and out of the shower by Z.  Eat quickly while rushing to finish getting ready to leave the house at such-and-such a time."

Ultimately they're both the same routine, but one is relaxed and flows with however the day is panning out, while the other is rigid and stresses me out.

Unfortunately, my mornings are more the 2nd style of routine because I prefer to stay in bed until the last reasonable moment (especially because getting to sleep is sometimes tricky).

Part of the reason they're more the 2nd style in the mornings is that my hours at work have changed this week.  Instead of 8am to 4pm, I've moved to 7am to 3pm, which means I get home when the Little Big Fella gets home from school.

Which also means that the afternoon/evening is more the first style of routine.

And I'm loving that!

Today we got home and had a swim, then I went to the shops to get milk and such.  While I was there I realised that I could check the mail because the post office was still open!  Previously, getting to the post office after work has been a rush and puts the whole afternoon/evening under pressure.

I'm just enjoying having that extra time to play with my son (yesterday we played UNO Stacko, and Yahtzee).

There is a slight down side, though.  I only have about half an hour after the Little Big Fella goes to sleep before I need to go to bed.  And I'm definitely going to need to change things around a little so that some of the jobs I used to do at the end of the day get done earlier (before I'm completely exhausted).  But overall, this is going well for us so far!

The Little Big Fella started Grade 2 this week.  He has the same teacher as last year, who he absolutely adores!  And he has plenty of friends in his class.

The school he goes to has all composite classes, except for Prep, so this is his first year as a big kid.  His teacher gives the Grade 2 students stickers every time they do something as "a responsible role model", and it seems to be a good motivator.  He's so proud to be able to help.

The Big Fella informed the Little Big Fella this week that he needs to learn how to cook his own breakfast, and that when he's a little bigger, he'll get to cook dinner for us all.

So the Little Big Fella has been cooking his own bacon and eggs, and french toast this week (with supervision - he's not quite ready to tackle the kitchen alone yet!).  He's so proud of the skills he's learning.


Which has made me re-assess my parenting.  The Little Big Fella is big for his age, so often we treat him as an older child.  But there are also lots of times where I baby him and do too much for him, depriving him of the opportunity to learn and be proud of new skills.

So as we start a new school year, and a new season at work, I'm internally challenging myself to allow my son to experience the frustrations and joys of tackling new tasks.  I will take the time (especially in the afternoons, when I feel like I have so much more time) to give him the space to make mistakes and beat the challenges.  I want to give him more chance to be proud of himself, and grow into the man we want him to be.

Decorating The Christmas Tree

Y'all know I love Christmas and decorating the tree really kicks off the season for me.

I'm one of those who won't put the tree up until either December 1st, or the first Saturday in December (depending on the year).  But this year has been slightly hectic so the tree went up on Sunday (still in November!!!), but the decorations didn't make it on until the 1st.

In past years I've done catalogue-style trees and quite enjoyed them.  But my favourite is definitely when I put all of the decorations I've been given on, and have a slightly crazy-looking, homey tree.

I love pulling each one out of the box and unwrapping them, and being reminded of who gave them to me and where I was at the time.

The glass tear drop and the yellow bauble are from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.  They've had a tradition of giving each other a decoration each year, and they included me as soon as I married the Big Fella.

No family Christmas tree is complete without some home-made items.  And a little whimsy.

I love the ones with photos of family, and how as I place each item on the tree, I'm flooded with memories of good times and great people that make my life rich.

No matter what kind of tree I have, no matter the colour scheme or theme, this bauble always makes it on to the tree.  Before the Big Fella and I started dating we went to a Christmas festival in the street where he worked.  It's a vintage-style street with a real village atmosphere.

A bunch of friends were meant to join us, but for some reason they all pulled out so it ended up being just the Big Fella and I.  (I sometimes wonder if he arranged it that way, but I've never asked.)

We wandered around looking at things and having a great time together, when we came to the little square just up from his workshop.  There was a lady there putting peoples' names on baubles and hanging them from the tree in the centre of the square.

We got our initials put on and hung the bauble in the tree.

After Christmas, when we were officially together, the Big Fella went to the tree and found our bauble.  He produced it the following Christmas (just a few weeks before we were married).

See?  Each ornament has a story and an emotional connection to great times and places!  This is my annual reminder of people who have been in my life and shared a bit of themselves with me.  It reminds me that I am here, the person I am now because of the influence of these wonderful people.

So, my Christmas tree, thank you for reminding me how great life is and how precious people are, and that the "silly season" is about more than stress and money.